Faces in the Mirror
by Sthrissa
Summary: In a land torn asunder by two tyrannical armies, whose people are distorted shadows of what they could be and good intentions have been twisted into dark ends, the world burns. Examines various individuals within a Mirror Universe - the 'Shattered Disc'
1. The Crone

**Faces in the Mirror**  
Author: Sthrissa  
Summary: In a land torn asunder by two tyrannical armies, whose people are distorted shadows of what they could be and good intentions have been twisted into dark ends, the world burns. Examines various individuals within a Mirror Universe discworld - the 'Shattered Disc'. Inspired by this thread: http:/ /forum. rpg. net /showthread. php ?413172-Badwrong-fun-Shattered-Disc  
Disclaimer: Ideas heavily borrowed from the posts in the above thread. Can't really claim much as mine. This world was just too compelling and I couldn't resist playing around a bit.

* * *

**The Crone**

She was the best. She has known that as a fact since she was barely more than a child.

She had desired magic and dared to claim it as her due, her will wresting that power from the universe. She had looked upon the wrongs across the land and dared to assume responsibility to see them righted. She had power enough to change the world and she worked tirelessly to perform her duty, to better lives and mend her people's ills. In her steading no harm would be allowed, no darkness would touch her people. She would see that the right thing was done, whatever the cost.

She would be the greatest witch the disc had ever known.

They came to her whenever something went wrong, when their joints ached or when infection ate into their skin. When their crops wilted or their children became ill they would always come to her begging for aid.

But after the ills were healed, after they had left their payments of used rags and excess food, they would walk away and quickly their ephemeral gratitude would be replaced by resentment and fear. As she laboured for them, they would wonder whether _she_ was the one who made their joints ache, the one who sent the boil demons to gnaw on their backsides. They would talk and some swear that they had seen her lay a hex on their livestock and curse their children. Whatever she did, however hard she tried, as soon as she was no longer needed their dislike of her would return.

And they would gossip with their neighbours and in their pubs, muttering their ignorance and poison within the false safety of the dark and warm rooms. With alcoholic courage in their veins they would complain and would hate what they could not understand and would wonder at her knowledge and her abilities, their words fuelled by envy and fear. They would spread their uncertainty and allow their discontent with their dull lives and shattered dreams to find a focus in her.

And as she toiled to save their livestock she would always hear them. She would see their fear turn to resentment as she coaxed their crops to flourish. She would bear their anger when things went wrong as a result of their foolishness. She would find herself blamed when she failed to prevent catastrophe and resented when she would succeed.

And she would think, "_How dare they_."

When the Cunning Man came to her bringing pitchforks and flame, she would hear his whispers and she would rage.

And she would think, "If only they did as I said. If only they were _made_ t'do as I said. Most of 'em are still alive only because of me. I _deserve_ their gratitude."

She was the one who had all the power._ How dare they_.

When the Cunning Man came bearing his weapons of ignorance and hatred, intolerance and fear...

...she brandished her pride and unleashed the power of her magic.

She dealt easily with all the witches who tried to stop her, her power far greater than theirs, and amongst the countless lives she would come to destroy, only one death would ever give her pause. The very first and last life she would regret taking was that of a fellow witch and childhood friend, whose skull she would carry with her through all the years of her hegemony, humming an endless lament of bawdy songs.

The Lancre crown was the first of many that she would seize with the power of her magic.

All hail Esme, Crone of the Ramtops.


	2. The Spellholder

**The Spellholder**

They say his heart pumps not blood but pure magic. They say he has mastered dragons, conquered empires and journeyed to the very edge of the disc and back.

They say he has been to the Dungeon Dimensions and learned its secrets, that he followed a Thing of nightmares into the darkness.

They say that he had stood upon the forbidden tower in the abandoned University, amongst the frozen remnants of the greatest wizards of the age, and watched as eight worlds died.

They say that he has vanquished Sourcerers and that he holds in his head a Spell so powerful, to speak it would shake the world.

They say he is the last of the Silver Horde, that he has walked with heroes and was the companion of demons. That he is beloved of a fickle Goddess and that he has stared Death in the eyes and walked away.

They say that he leads a group of madmen who dare to stand between the armies of the Last King and the Crone. They say that he knows no fear.

He is the Great Wizard Rincewind. And he has nowhere else left to run.


	3. Om

**Om**

I. He dragged His last believer to safety in Ankh-Morpork.  
II. Let war take Omnia and its people, He would have life for a little while longer.

III. He knew that His existence would be counted in only years, a single mortal lifetime.  
IV. He would live for only as long as His human breathed and then, unless he found more converts, He would be no more.

V. He had learned that human belief was unreliable and He despaired.  
VI. And then He had come upon a golem who toiled, unknown and unseen, within the sewers of the city.

VII. All it had taken were a few words on a scroll.

VIII. By the time the human died, He had all the believers He needed.  
IX. They would never die and their devotion would never, could never, wane.  
X. He returned in glory and triumph to Cori Celesti.

XI. Praise be to the Great God Om, King of Golems.


	4. The Last King

**The Last King**

His childhood was spent within harsh rock tunnels buried deep within the mountains of the Ramtops. For as long as he could remember, he and his family had toiled to fuel the ambitions of a dark and terrible witch. He remembers cowering from the Crone's ever present gaze, suffocating under her unyielding laws, watching as her empire crept over the mountains and across the continent.

When he was sixteen he and his family were forced to flee from the Copperhead mines, which had been their home for generations. A few villages in the lands surrounding their mountain had foolishly defied the Crone and as an example and a reminder to the people to obey her will, the Crone unleashed her magics upon the land. Her first punishment upon her fearful subjects was to tear Lancre through time, tormenting and breaking the bonds of friendship and family of those trapped on either side of her foul spell.

And when she turned her eye towards his clan, his family had no wish to discover what further horrors she could devise. They abandoned their mines and fled towards the Sto Plains where the Crone's power did not yet hold sway. He was the only one who made it through the witch's domain alive.

Alone, burdened by his memories and his guilt, he found his way to that city to which all roads led.

In Ankh-Morpork he discovered a people suffering under centuries of misrule by the line of Patricians who, one after another, had slowly bled the city of its soul. Since the fall of the line of kings, the glorious pearl of the disc had been plagued by unrest and turmoil. Without a royal hand to guide them, the city had been plagued by a warring oligarchy and a succession of Patricians who, not having the grace of kingship to grant them legitimacy, had needed to maintain a secret security force and used intimidation and torture to preserve their rule.

He had come to the city at a time when yet another coup was under way, another underhanded attempt to place yet another unworthy ruler at the foot of the golden throne. He watched the government fall into disarray, as a dragon terrorised the city and caused the downfall of Snapcase the Psychoneurotic. He had seen that the city could mount no defence against the beast, and though pawn after pawn, pretender after pretender had been sent in to slay it and claim the city as their prize, all had fallen.

He had looked upon the evils that plagued his land and accepted the responsibility to which he had been born. Upon him rested the wishes and expectations of a kingdom and all its people, and he had to protect them whatever the cost.

With the mantle of destiny heavy around his shoulders, his unbroken sword grasped tightly in his hands, he boldly faced the horror that tormented his city and, in bold and magnificent battle, singlehandedly slew the beast. And as he stood before his people, basking in their cheers and adulation, all the world finally saw that the mark of kingship rested upon his brow.

And thus the line of kings reclaimed its rightful place upon the golden throne of Ankh-Morpork.

And all saw that grace and nobility had finally returned to the greatest city on the disc.

And the glory of the King's Majesty had no bounds for he burned with the power of destiny and any place that his gaze fell would find itself healed of all evil.

His determination to spread justice across the disc shone brightly and all who felt its touch, if they had even smallest bit of goodness in their hearts, were reduced to tears and clamoured to join his crusade.

He basked in the unshakeable faith of subjects who knew he could do no wrong, who knew that nothing he did could ever be wrong.

He called upon the men and women of his kingdom to sweep across the plains and eradicate evil wherever it was found. Whatever the species, gender or age, down to the last foul and unrepentant creature, all must be slain if they served the dark. Human, troll or dwarf, old or young, alive or undead, all the vile and terrible creatures across the disc who, by their unwillingness to bow to him, verified the the evil in their hearts.

And his armies swarmed over the land, converting ever more subjects to his expanding empire, spreading the benevolence of his rule. With unyielding resolve he pursued his quest to realise the final triumph of good over all the forces of evil.

He is Carrot the Righteous, Last King of Ankh-Morpork.


	5. A'Tuin

**A'Tuin**

Its children were dead.

It had made the long journey back to a particular red star and had waded onto the celestial shores, where the currents of magic ebbed and the solid pressure of reality imposed its inflexible grip. In a little patch of space within that littoral zone where magic and reality intermingled, eight eggs had been anchored for eons, a crown of octarine jewels pulsing in the firmament.

There it waited for an event it had been anticipating for an eternity, waited for its hopes and its future to be realised.

And it had waited.

And in an arena within the great dark dimensions on the barest edge of existence, surrounded by Things that hated and craved substance and order, a wizard whose mind held the final piece of a magical key stared at his eldritch opponent... And fled into the darkness.

The astrochelonian waited until it could stay no longer, its innate magic stripped too low for it to remain within the pull of uncompromising reality. Slowly, it returned to the magical currents of the space between the stars.

And eight lifeless rocks were left orbiting a red sun.

Grief pulsed along neural pathways the size of cities. Great A'Tuin mourned.

And a world burned.


	6. Susan

**Susan**

The universe has birthed many monsters, countless creatures of nightmare to haunt dreams, an endless swarm of demons that tore at the edges of reality. But of all the terrors in existence, all the evils that stalked the darkness, only one thing she feared - the slow tumble of that last grain of sand, the blue flash of a scythe in downward swing, the door to eternal oblivion.

Of all the horrors that plagued the world, the most terrible was her Grandfather, the absolute and the only reality. He who could not be deterred or placated. He who cared not for justice, would grant no mercy, offer no quarter. He who would not even spare his apprentice or his own daughter...

He, whose power was in her bones.

And when He ends she would begin.

His fate was bound to the that of the disc. As long as anything within the magical field of A'Tuin continued to live, to conceive of it's own inevitable demise, he would also continue. But if the last life were to end within her alloted lifespan...

And so she whispers to the Crone of magic and of being right. And she whispers to the Last King of monarchy and of justice. She speaks to them of war and conquest, shows them evil and offers them power.

One day they will both learn to direct the power of the cracked thaum. To destroy the darkness that she has shown them, they will one day unleash the broken particles of magic upon each other. And in that firestorm of unfettered power, as they try to elevate themselves to godhood with the mass sacrifice of their enemies' lives, Cori Celesti itself will shatter. And the disc will crack, the elephants will be reduced to bones, and the agonised screams of Great A'Tuin will sound and then be no more.

And when the turtle gasps its last, her Grandfather's rule will end. And she will be safe.

She was Susan Sto Helit and she has no intention of falling to Death's blade.


End file.
